Finland Times

 

The accused 35-year-old mother and her lawyer at Oulu District Court during the legal proceedings of killing five fetuses. File Photo – Str / Lehtikuva.

A mother was sentenced to life term imprisonment for killing five foetuses in Oulu.

 

The Oulu District Court on Monday awarded the punishment to the mother, Kaisa Emilia Vornanen-Karaduman, for the five murders and for five grave breaches of the peace, court sources said.

 

The murders of the five newborns discovered a year ago were deliberately planned, according to the verdict.

 

The court said Vornanen-Karaduman became pregnant and gave birth with the intention of killing the infants.

 

The 36-year-old woman planned the births, the murders and the hiding or disposal of the bodies, according to the court, so that no one would become aware of the births. She only revealed one pregnancy.

 

“Taking into account the almost identical five repeated acts, the intentions were clear,” said the court verdict.

 

According to her psychological evaluation, the woman was aware of the consequences of her actions when she committed the deeds.

 

The woman gave birth to two boys and three girls alone at home in between 2005 and 2013. After the births, she moved the newborns into a variety of sealed containers.

 

According to the court, the woman’s actions of killing the babies were conscious and deliberate. The infants lived 1-4 days.

 

According to the district court, the infants were killed in a particularly brutal and cruel manner. 

 

The woman left the newborns without care or warmth. In the court’s view, the woman took special care to ensure the infants’ suffering.

 

These acts are also considered especially aggressive, because the woman murdered helpless defenceless children entirely dependent upon her. 

 

Candles lit in the apartment from where five full-term fetuses were recovered on June 5, 2014. File Photo – Str / Lehtikuva.

The woman’s motive for the crimes was uncovered neither during the trial nor in her psychological evaluation.

 

The woman denied in the court that the actions were deliberate and claimed that she was under the impression that all the five babies were stillborn. 

 

The defence argued in the court that the woman was mentally disturbed. According to the court, the homicides were not due to the anxiety or fatigue of childbirth.

 

According to the psychological evaluation, any anxiety was caused primarily by her fear that the murders would become discovered, and the negative consequences of that discovery.

 

The woman’s functional capacity both before and after the births remained, according to the court, normal. She went on with her normal life by, for example, going to work.

 

That her acts were deliberate, the court found by the fact that Vornanen-Karaduman concealed all of the pregnancies save one, which she claimed to her husband as being lost in miscarriage.

 

She did not at any time during the pregnancies visit a child welfare clinic or use medical services.

 

The woman gave birth alone and did not call for help. She also cleaned up any traces of the birth from her apartment and hid the babies. The mother kept the corpses, among other places, on the balcony and in the freezer. She also carried them along with her several times when moving to new homes.

 

The infants’ bodies were discovered a year ago in June in an Oulu apartment building basement when residents began to wonder about a strange smell.

 

According to defence lawyer Meeri Palosaari, the mother plans to appeal the judgment.